This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 62nd New York Film Festival with The Seed of the Sacred Fig director Mohammad Rasoulof.  

The Seed of the Sacred Fig opens at FLC on November 27. Get tickets!

A target of Iran’s hardline conservative government for his films’ criticism of the state, Rasoulof fled his home country to avoid an eight-year prison sentence, though he hadn’t finished editing his latest film yet. His searing drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig won a Special Prize from the jury and three other awards on its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is every bit as urgent and gripping as its real-life backstory would portend: longtime government worker Iman (Missagh Zareh) has just received a major promotion to the role of judge’s investigator, to the hopeful delight of his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani); at the same moment, a series of student protests against the government have exploded in the streets, stoking the sympathies of their independent-minded daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). The growing wedge between progressive children and traditional parents intensifies through a series of unsettling events that put Iman’s future in jeopardy. Both paranoia thriller and domestic drama, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is above all an epic of anti-patriarchal political conviction.

This conversation was moderated by NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen. Thank you to interpreter Sheida Dayani. Listen/watch below.